- Dizziness
- Slowed heart rate
- Slowed breathing
- Constipation
- Dental decay
- Weight gain
- Urinary tract infections
- Impaired vision
- Memory loss
- Hallucinations
- Seizures (in at-risk individuals)
***Mixing the cough syrup with alcohol makes the drink even more dangerous.
Death in HipHop culture from Lean:
A$AP YAMS
A$AP Yams was pronounced dead back in at the age of 26-year-old cofounder of the A$AP Mob and one of the most promising young moguls in the game.
Check out this tweet below for the actual cause of death:
Sad news: Chief Medical Examiner calls ASAP Yams's death accident caused by acute mixed drug intoxication (incl. opiates & benzodiazepine) — Jon Caramanica (@joncaramanica) March 19, 2015
DJ SCREW
On 16 November 2000, DJ Screw, aged 29, was found dead in his studio after overdosing on codeine, valium, and phencyclidine, also known as Angel Dust.
Big Moe
Big Moe died due to a heart attack-induced coma. Although his death wasn’t directly connected to codeine, it’s believed that his long-term consumption of purple drank may have contributed to the heart attack.
Pimp C
In December 2007, Pimp C was in California working on new music when he was found dead in a hotel room. The coroner’s report said that the death was due to a combination of overdosing on purple drank and his sleep apnea condition.
Rappers who struggled with Lean:
Lil Wayne
Future:
In a June 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Future talked about his experience with lean, which he popularized as “Dirty Sprite”. “At first, it wasn’t something that I loved. It wasn’t till I discovered what I loved about it. Some people take drugs and they don’t understand the high. They take it just to be high. It started making me more relaxed. Sometimes you experience anxiety, and it did me some good for that. I don’t feel like I ever abused it. I used it for what I felt was needed.”
While working on his WRLD on Drugs album, young rapper Juice WRLD confessed to Future that his music made him try lean as a child. “When he told me that, I was like ‘Oh shit. What the fuck have I done?'” Future said in an interview with Rolling Stone in January 2019. In an earlier interview with Genius.com, Future has confirmed that he has quit lean for good and admitted that he worried about letting his fans know, fearing a backlash after making so many codeine-fueled tracks.
2chainz
In a 2011 interview with Vibe Magazine, 2 Chainz said about his favourite drink, “I’ve probably been drinking since maybe 2007, so it’s a little different for me because it wasn’t well-known, but the truth about promethazine/codeine is that it’s a pharmaceutical drug. No one makes it in a tub or anything. Moderate use is cool but I think that’s hard for people to do that. But I definitely don’t promote people using it.”
DannyBrown
In 2013 in an interview with English DJ Tim Westwood, who runs YouTube channel TimWestwoodTv, Danny Brown talked about weight gain and issued a PSA against Lean. Lean by recipe has a lot of sugar in it from the soda, the cough syrup, and the hard candy, if any is added. Using Gucci Mane as an example, he talked about being constipated and bloated when one drinks too much lean. And once you quit lean, he revealed it will be an all-out flood-gates-open diarrhea. “So, don’t drink lean, kids, don’t drink lean. I don’t think it should be a drug that’s glorified. It’s liquid heroin, it’s an opiate"
Boosie:
Check out this tweet below from TMZ
He nearly died three or four times from drinking lean and says it's 'f*cked up a lot of rappers and the culture of hip-hop.' He says users don't realize something that tastes like Kool-Aid can be so addictive.
Gucci Mane
In an interview with Highly Questionable of ESPN in January 2017, Gucci Mane reflected about his past mental health issues and lean addiction, which made him bloated and gain weight. He was drinking lean every day for around seven years and he said the drying up process was “indescribable and terrible”.
Sources Cited
Eakin, Marah. “Learn all about the long, lean history of “sizzurp” with this 7-minute audio primer”. AV Club.com. 26 March 2013
Farfalla, Tony. “Leaning with Juicy J“. DazedDigital.com. 4 October 2013.
Ferguson, Gillian. “A history of ‘sizzurp‘”. Good Food Show. KCRW. Soundcloud. (date not indicated)
Hiatt, Brian. “Future: Syrup, Strippers and Heavy Angst With the Superstar MC”. Rolling Stone.com. 29 June 2016.
Holmes, Charles. “Future Changed Rap for a Generation. He Doesn’t Know How to Feel About It”. Rolling Stone.com. 17 January 2019.
Khan, Amina. “Doctor explains sizzurp’s powerful high — and deadly side effects”. Los Angeles Times. 18 March 2013.
Morel, Jacques. “A History of the Houston Rap Tapes: Lance Scott Walker and Jacques Morel in Conversation”. Los Angeles Review of Books. 25 March 2019.
Shye, Roni. “Promethazine With Codeine Discontinued Over Abuse”. GoodRX. 2 May 2014.
Vice staff. “How Lean Became Rap’s Most Wanted Drug“. Vice.com. 13 December 2018.
Vice staff. “Why Lean Became Rap’s Most Wanted Drug“. (video) YouTube. 12 December 2018.
Vice staff. Screwed in Houston (documentary video). YouTube. 26 October 2011.
Walker, Lance Scott. Houston Rap Tapes: An Oral History of Bayou City Hip-Hop. University of Texas Press. October 2018.
Westwood, Tim. “Danny Brown on syrup – Westwood” (video). YouTube. 29 April 2014.
Westwood, Tim. Brown, Danny. “Statements on Giving Up Lean“. Genius.com